An American woman was killed and five other people injured in a stabbing attack in London’s Russell Square by a Norwegian man of Somali origin who was arrested after the incident, authorities said. "So far we have found no evidence of radicalization or anything that would suggest the man in our custody was motivated by terrorism," Rowley said. He said the woman who died was a 60-year-old American, and the five injured people are British, American, Israeli and Australian. None had life-threatening injuries. Two remain in a hospital, while three others have been discharged.

Australia’s opposition leader conceded defeat on Sunday in a chaotic national election that has left Australia in a state of political paralysis for more than a week, while officials scramble to sort out who, if anyone, actually won the tight race. Vote counting was still underway from the July 2 ballot, but opposition leader Bill Shorten said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s ruling conservative coalition would eventually secure enough seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives to retain power. […] With Shorten’s center-left Labor Party out of the running, just two options remain: Either the coalition will form a majority government...

In 5,000 years of recorded human history, there has been no nation even resembling the United States. The American model has offered, and continues to offer, a greater chance for dignity, hope and happiness for more people than any other system. As Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, put it: “Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.” Lady Thatcher was right. The philosophy is one of individual liberty, free-market opportunity and belief that it's all a gift from God. America is the best idea the world has ever had, the greatest value system ever devised. What are...

Australian reality show contestants got a lot more than they bargained for when producers sent them to Syria to spend a night in a camp with Kurdish militants and run from ISIS gunfire. The show — Go Back To Where You Came From — tries to change contestants' views on immigration by showing them what refugees go through. How better than to take them to see what the UN has called the worst refugee crisis in 25 years? "At one stage we were 800 metres from the front line and definitely getting shot at," Kim Vuga, one of three contestants,...

A former Australian soldier has been killed fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq. It is believed Ashley Johnston, a former Army reservist originally from Queensland, was killed in an assault by Kurdish forces on an IS position near the Iraqi city of Shingal. ...

A 17-year-old shark attack victim fatally mauled in waters off WA's south coast has been identified as local boy Jay Muscat. Jay was spearfishing with a teenage friend at Cheynes Beach, a small settlement of holiday homes and a caravan park about 65km east of Albany, when he was bitten on the leg around noon yesterday. Jay and his friends were keen free divers and most of their social media posts were of fishing, PerthNow reports. He described himself on his Instagram page as "just a young salty dog ... spearfishing and fishing are my thing". The spearfishers were about...

A Thai surrogate mother left with one twin by his Australian biological parents after the child was born with Down Syndrome said on Sunday she was not informed of his condition until late in her pregnancy. Pattaramon Janbua said her doctors, the surrogacy agency and the baby's parents knew he was disabled at four months but did not inform her until the seventh month when the agency asked her - at the parents' request - to abort the disabled fetus. Pattaramon, 21, told Reuters Television she refused the abortion on religious grounds and carried both him and his twin sister...

THE Australian War Memorial has abandoned a proposal to remove the words "known unto God" from the Tomb of the Australian Unknown Soldier after the personal intervention of Tony Abbott. The memorial's governing council decided at its meeting in August to replace two inscriptions on the tomb at the Canberra memorial with words from a speech by Paul Keating. The memorial's director, former Liberal Party leader Brendan Nelson, announced the changes in an unscripted National Press Club speech six weeks ago on a day when attention was focused on the swearing in of the new government. It was several days...

THE federal Liberal-National coalition is likely to govern with a majority of at least 30 seats after a swing of just over three per cent against Labor. The ALP has become the first two-term federal government to be thrown out of office since Gough Whitlam's regime in 1975. Tony Abbott's coalition is on track to pick up 90 seats, with Labor holding 57, in the 150-seat parliament, but it won't have a majority in the Senate.

We have had Live Threads here at Freerepublic for the count for the last three Australian Federal elections - in 2004 which ended in conservative victory, then again in 2007 which ended in defeat for the conservatives and a Labor government, and then again in 2010 which gave us a hung Parliament, where Labor continued governing with the support of the Greens and independents. This is the live thread for 2013 - polls close and the count begins in about 10 minutes. Polls and exit polls indicate a victory for the conservative coalition under Tony Abbott is highly likely. A...

In a testament to the depravity of thug culture, an Australian collegiate baseball player attending school in America was killed by three teenagers looking for fun, police reported. Christopher Lane, who was out for a jog in the town of Duncan, Oklahoma where his girlfriend and her family live, was targeted at random after he passed a home where the boys were staying. ”They saw Christopher go by, and one of them said: ‘There’s our target,’” said Police Chief Danny Ford. ”The boy who has talked to us said, ‘We were bored and didn’t have anything to do, so we...

Did I miss it? I searched again...Not one article on the murder of the Australian boy by three blacks. Talk about your brain washing liberal media! Incredible! It was Trayvon Martin 24-7 when it was supposedly a white on black murder. Do these whack left wing nuts think no one notices?

One of the teens charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Australian baseball player Christopher Lane in Duncan, Oklahoma previously posted anti-white statements on his Twitter feed. James Edwards, 15, Chancey Luna, 16, and Michael Jones, 17, have all been charged as adults in Lane’s death. Lane, a 22 year-old student from Melbourne, was out for a jog last Friday evening when the three teens began following him in a car and shot him “just for the fun of it,” according to Duncan officials. Edwards and Luna are charged with first-degree murder while Jones is accused of using...

CNN has only part of this story. Three teenage boys - 2 black and one white - apparently targeted an Austrialian citizen who was attending a local college in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship for murder because they were "bored." Chris Lane was walking down the road when the teens came up behind him and shot him in the back: A random act of violence has left a promising 23-year-old college baseball player dead, a family devastated and two countries half a world apart rattled. Christopher Lane, who was from Australia, was gunned down in Duncan, Oklahoma, while he was...

It all started when Australian halal butcher Raymond Akhtar Ali just wanted to get a little on the side. He began to casually see one of the employees at his butcher shop, a 22-year-old non-Muslim woman. After a short period, the woman felt she had become his “sex slave,” and discovered she had been impregnated by him. With her employment on the line if she were to stop seeing him, she felt she had few choices but to carry the child to term. She gave birth in secret, with Ali present. A baby born out of wedlock is considered a...

Islamic Sharia law is outdated, controlling, un democratic, barbaric, racist, sexist and just plain stupid. It isÂ completelyÂ incompatible with modern life inÂ civilizedÂ nations. ItÂ’s no wonder those who live under Sharia in Muslim countries or those who call for it in the west are often regarded as a bit backwards,because Â Sharia Â mostÂ definitelyÂ is retarded. How can throwing a female who is a victim of Â not 1 repulsive rapist but of 3 evil rapists, into prison for having sex out of wedlock be any kind of justice. The woman never asked to be raped, sheÂ wasnÂ’t flirting with the attackers or leading them on...

The Muslim terrorist group Qa’adat el-Jihad claimed responsibility Saturday for a terrorist bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria. The bombing in Bulgaria last week killed five Israelis, one a pregnant woman. The Lebanese paper El-Nashra reported that the group, which has ties to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility in an email to the Arab press.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stunned constituents on Wednesday by announcing that national elections will be held on September 14. Gillard, who holds power by a narrow margin and is trailing in the polls behind the conservative opposition, broke from the country’s tradition of revealing election dates only a few weeks in advance. While Gillard’s surprising announcement aimed at ending political uncertainty surrounding her struggling minority government, she sparked outrage within the Jewish community, as September 14 falls out on Yom Kippur—the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

Brisbane company Linc Energy says independent studies have confirmed a major shale oil source in South Australia's far north, which officials have estimated could be worth $20 trillion. The company says US-consultants have carried out drilling and geological and seismic surveys around Coober Pedy. Linc Energy holds rights over more than 65,000 square kilometres of land in the Arckaringa Basin and started explorations in 2008. In a statement to the Stock Exchange, the company said reports from US-based consultants indicate underlying rock formations "are rich in oil and gas-prone kerogen". The company says up to 233 billion barrels of oil...

The largest mosque in Australia posted a Facebook “fatwa” against Christmas — warning followers that it’s a “sin” even to wish people a Merry Christmas — before taking it down, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The ruling, posted Saturday by the Lakemba Mosque in Sydney, said the “disbelievers are trying to draw Muslims away from the straight path” and that “a Muslim is neither allowed to celebrate the Christmas Day nor is he allowed to congratulate [Christians].” It went up following a sermon from the mosque’s head imam against participating in any Christmas-related activities. On wishing people a Merry Christmas,...

(CNN) -- Two Australian Olympic swimmers who posted pictures on Facebook of themselves brandishing weapons have been ordered to take them down by the country's swimming authorities. The image, taken in a gun shop in Santa Clara, California, showed Nick D'Arcy with two pistols standing next to Kenrick Monk who is holding two shotguns across his chest, according to a Friday report in Australia's Herald Sun. The swimmers were training in the U.S. ahead of the Olympic Games in London later this year. Swimming Australia said in a statement that it does not condone "the posting of inappropriate content on...

Billionaire Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer accused the CIA of funding environmental extremists seeking to cripple the island nation’s industry, saying during a press conference that the money was being routed through conduits such as the infamous Rockefeller Foundation. And the Australians involved in the alleged plot are essentially committing “treason,” Palmer declared. The CIA, environmentalist organizations such as Greenpeace, and Australian Green Party politicians all rejected the accusations. But the high-profile remarks from Palmer, a professor who owns a massive business empire worth billions and is a significant financial contributor to the center-right Liberal National Party (LNP), caused a...

LABOR may have finally bounced off rock bottom but Australia's oldest political party and its leader are still facing a historic loss of public confidence and electoral failure. A three-point rise in the Newspoll primary vote for the ALP has avoided the unthinkable for the Gillard government of going to 25 per cent or below to have less support than the combined vote for the Greens and various odds and sods, but the broader view of this survey of public opinion about Labor - as well as the personal standing of Julia Gillard - is devastating. The electorate has not...

FEDERAL Labor MP Mike Kelly revealed yesterday how he had been forced to use a bayonet to "stick" enemy Somalis while serving with the Australian army. Defending himself against claims his 20-year career in the army was spent behind a desk, Mr Kelly said: "I actually had to use the bayonet. I did actually stick them - I don't know if it was life threatening - to ward them off." The parliamentary secretary for agriculture is in a war of words with his constituent, retired Air Vice-Marshal Peter Criss, and other veterans over military pensions, The Daily Telegraph reported. Prior...

Nancy Wake, Australia's greatest World War II heroine and a prominent figure in the French Resistance known as the "The White Mouse" for her ability to evade the Germans, has died in London. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the woman who was once the Gestapo's most wanted person, was "a devastatingly effective saboteur and spy". "Nancy Wake was a woman of exceptional courage and resourcefulness whose daring exploits saved the lives of hundreds of Allied personnel and helped bring the Nazi occupation of France to an end," Gillard said. Wake, who died in a London hospital on Sunday just...

JULIA Gillard admits Australia is a long way from consensus on climate change - and says the debate may become ever tougher for Labor - as new polling reveals her behind Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister for the first time. ..... Ms Gillard said today the polling was a result of her plan to put a price on carbon, and that while it was a tough reform "it may get even tougher, before it gets easier". “I believe that once carbon pricing is in place people will see how the system works and the benefits of it,” the Prime...

Kill a camel, earn cash for cutting greenhouse gases: That offer may be coming soon in Australia, where vast numbers of the nonnative, methane-belching animals have been trampling the Outback for more than a century. The government has proposed that killing camels be officially registered as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Australia has the world's largest population of wild camels _ an estimated 1.2 million _ and considers them to be a growing environmental problem. The proposal, released for public comment this week, would allow sharpshooters to earn so-called carbon credits for slaughtering camels. Industrial polluters around the...

Advertisement by group Mypeace, reading "Jesus, a Prophet of Islam," labeled by Catholic bishop "a direct assault on Christian beliefs." A billboard campaign in Australia launched by a Muslim group in the country caused outrage among some of Sydney's Christians, upset by advertisements reading "Jesus, a Prophet of Islam," the London Daily Mail reported on Saturday. One Catholic bishop said that the posters were a "direct assault on Christian beliefs." The group, called Mypeace, claims that the campaign was made to encourage awareness about Islam, and correct some misconceptions the public may have regarding the religion. The group said the...

Defence buys "value for money" ship From: AAP April 06, 2011 12:31PM Australia is to buy a near-new surplus British navy amphibious landing ship at what appears a bargain $100 million pricetag. Defence Minister Stephen Smith said Australia had been successful in its bid for RFA Largs Bay, a 16,000 tonne landing ship launched in 2003 and commissioned in 2006. The ship is set to be decommissioned as a cost saving measure under the UK government's Strategic Defence and Security Review released last October. Mr Smith said Australia would pay 65 million pounds or $A100 million at the current exchange...

Australia needs 12 large subs for security Brendan Nicholson From: The Australian AUSTRALIA will need 12 big, long-range submarines to help it shape its own strategic future. The region will be increasingly dominated by China, says Paul Dibb, author of the 1987 defence white paper. In the wake of warnings about China's growing military power at the Ausmin talks, Professor Dibb will tell a Submarine Institute conference in Perth today it is time Australians took their strategic outlook much more seriously. "We ignore our own unique strategic geography at our peril in the decades ahead," he will say. Having a...

Australia's dollar has blasted through parity against the US dollar after the country raised interest rates a quarter point to 4.75pc to fight inflation. The long-awaited moment of "triple parity" seems imminent. The Swiss franc is already worth more than a greenback, and the Canadian dollar is seemingly poised to break through as well. The surging "Aussie" - widely seen as a play on the China growth story and used by traders as a proxy for the Chinese yuan - captures the shift in the world's economic centre of gravity to the Pacific region. The currency was worth half a...

After a tense night of vote-counting yielded no clear result, Australia was heading for a hung parliament with independents Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter, who hail from regional areas, becoming the unlikely kingmakers. Independents (L-R) Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor While they all have links to the National Party, the minor party in Tony Abbott’s conservative coalition, the independents have said that past allegiances will not influence their negotiations. The most unpredictable member of the trio is Mr Katter, the MP for the vast seat of Kennedy in northern Queensland which covers more than 340,000sq miles. A...

JULIA Gillard has arrived in Canberra and will meet Governor-General Quentin Bryce at 10.30am to set a date for a federal election. The PM's office has confirmed that the Prime Minister will hold a press conference at noon. August 21 or 28 are the anticipated dates for the election. Ms Gillard is then expected to travel to Brisbane, where Labor has to make up ground following the dumping of Kevin Rudd. Ms Gillard smiled, but said nothing to reporters outside her western Melbourne home, as she was driven away just after 7am (AEST). The media is already camped outside Government...

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard is expected to call an election within 24 hours. The ABC reports that Labor sources have revealed Ms Gillard will visit Governor General Quentin Bryce in Canberra tomorrow morning to set the election for August 28. The election campaign will be six weeks long. The news comes as the Opposition accused Ms Gillard of trying "airbrush" the past by refusing to reveal whether she had reneged on a deal with Kevin Rudd. Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said today the Prime Minister should have been “honest” and “open” about what happened on the night before Mr Rudd...

PLANS are still being made for US President Barack Obama's Australian visit in a few weeks' time, despite concerns he may have to cancel again. Mr Obama is grappling with the US's worst ever environmental disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Efforts to block the spill have failed and the White House says it might leak until August. Mr Obama is due to visit Canberra and Sydney in mid-June, but there is speculation he may feel the pressure to stay at home and deal with the crisis. He had to cancel a previous Australian visit, in March, to rally...

Few are laughing in Australia following Robin Williams' joke that its people are "basically English rednecks". His remarks, made on The Late Show with David Letterman, prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to respond on a Sydney radio show. "I think Robin Williams should go and spend a little time in Alabama before he frames comments about people being particularly redneck," said Mr Rudd.

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Feiz Muhammad is an Australian citizen now residing in Malaysia. He has been labeled Australia's "most dangerous sheikh" due to the number of connections he has to known and suspected terrorists. Muhammad’s target audience is young Muslims who feel disaffected and disassociated from local Muslim communities, where mosque clerics show "a lack of interest toward the youth." His lectures frame the United States as the enemy of all Muslims, including those living in the United States and Americans living in other Western countries. He emphasizes that Muslims should regard Western culture as corrupt and immoral, and...

Allies? Who needs allies? From today’s Sydney Morning Herald (emphasis added): Barack Obama’s trip to Australia is going ahead but his 24-hour visit will be contained to Canberra. The US President will address Federal Parliament on March 26 after flying from Bali the day before and dining with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the Lodge. Mr Obama’s shortened itinerary – which allows him to spend more time in Indonesia – will include a meeting with Governor-General Quentin Bryce and a range of events to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Australia-US alliance. Mr Obama was forced to ditch his original...

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) – Australian underwear company AussieBum has been monkeying around and the result is a range of men's underwear made with bananas. The new eco-friendly banana range of undies incorporates 27 percent banana fiber, 64 percent cotton and 9 percent lycra, AussieBum's Lloyd Jones said on Friday.

TORONTO - There are still no leads in the case of an eastern Ontario scientist who disappeared without a trace last month, leaving his colleagues mystified. Lachlan Cranswick hasn't been seen since Jan. 18, when he left work at the National Research Council's Canadian Neutron Beam Centre in Chalk River, northwest of Ottawa. His nearby Deep River house was reportedly left unlocked and his car was in the garage. His wallet, keys and passport have all been accounted for......

Serena Williams has made it back-to-back Australian Open crowns after defeating Belgian comeback queen Justine Henin in the women’s singles final at Melbourne Park on Saturday night. Williams, the top seed, took her fifth Australian Open singles title with the 6-4 3-6 6-2 victory over former world No.1 Henin, who was playing her first major in 20 months after retiring in 2008. The victory is the 12th Grand Slam singles title of Williams’ career, and the American now equals compatriot Billie Jean King in sixth place on the all-time women’s Grand Slam singles title list.

SYDNEY (AFP) – People who spend more than four hours in front of the television each day have a far higher risk of dying early than those who limit their viewing, an Australian study said Tuesday. Watching the small screen for prolonged periods is also bad for your heart, according to the research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "Compared to people who watch less than two hours of television per day, people who watch more than four hours per day have a 46 percent higher risk of death from all causes," researcher David Dunstan told AFP....

GAZING from the Great Wall of China last week, US President Barack Obama appeared to be making the most of one of the perks of White House occupancy -- a private guided tour of Asia's most spectacular tourist spot. White House aides exulted that choreographed pictures of this moment would make front pages around the world. Yet an experience Mr Obama declared to be magical turned sour as he returned home to a domestic revolt that is fanning Democratic unease. It was not just that the US media have suddenly turned a lot more sceptical about a president with...

Peter Hitchener, who was broadcasting on Channel Nine, somehow managed to keep a straight face despite the sudden appearance of the gull. It loomed large on the screen behind him after it wandered in front of a camera used to film a Melbourne backdrop for the studio. The timing could not have been worse as Hitchener was trying read a story about organised crime in the city. "I was reading away and it was a serious story, and I suddenly thought 'Oh my gosh, that seagull's back again', because we had a bit of a problem last night," Hitchener told...

An academic says public education campaigns need a rethink after two girls used Facebook to alert people that they were stuck down a stormwater drain. The 10 and 12-year-old girls updated a Facebook status to say they were lost in an Adelaide drain, and a young friend called for help on their behalf. Glenn Benham from the Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) says it is concerning the girls raised the alert on the social networking site instead of calling 000. "If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones they could have called 000, so the point being they...